Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Monday, January 14, 2019

WM 115: Review: Beza and Revelation 16:5

I have uploaded WM 115: Review: "Beza and Revelation 16:5" (Listen here). This episode has three parts: (1) Introduction; (2) A review of the online article "Beza and Revelation 16:5"; and (3) Three Final Thoughts/Reflections.

Introduction:

In WM
114 I offered ten observations on a recent lecture from apologist JW on
“Text Criticism and the TR” which ended up being a review of a twitter exchange
between JW and someone going under the name “Textus Receptus” regarding the
text of Revelation 16:5, which is one of just a few places where there is
significant divided reading in the printed editions of the TR. Beza’s 1598 TR
reads “which art, and wast, and shalt be” (so rendered in the KJV), whereas
earlier editions like Erasmus’ 1516 TR reads “which art, and wast,…and holy”
(as in Tyndale, Geneva Bible, etc.).

Gathering from what I heard by email and text this was a
much-discussed topic last week.

I discovered a couple things:

First: The twitter disputant with JW is a fellow from
Australia named Nick Sayers.

Third: One of Nick’s key sources for his booklet is an online
article on the website kjvtoday.com titled “Beza
and Revelation 16:5” (about 16 pages in length in a printer friendly
version).

So, I thought it would be helpful to read this shorter article
first and offer a review of and some reflections upon it.

This is a very well written and thoughtful article—hardly the
mad ravings of the straw-man KJV Onlyist—though I do wish it had a name, date,
and some better documentation, at points, of sources cited.

The article makes a generally reasonable and compelling
argument as to why Beza’s reading at Revelation 16:5 should be taken seriously
and not simply discarded or rejected without critical examination (and
certainly not villainized, as JW does). There are also, however, some weaker
and less compelling arguments within the article.

Review of online article: “Beza and Revelation
16:5”:

Here is a review of some of what I see as the stronger and
weaker points made within the article:

First: Nice introductory statement:

“Since there is no existing manuscript with Beza's reading,
critics dismiss Beza's reading as an unwarranted conjectural emendation.
However, an in-depth study of the issue will reveal enough evidence to validate
Beza's conjectural emendation.”

Second: It provides an English translation
of Beza’s footnote, but does not provide a transliteration of the original
Latin note or identify the translator (the author? His credentials for making
the translation?).

One of the things I would be most interested to know is
whether Beza made a pure conjectural emendation or if he had some manuscript
evidence to support this reading.

The article observes: “Although Beza is silent, he could have
been influenced in making his change based on a minority Latin textual
variant. There are two Latin commentaries with readings of Revelation
16:5 which agree with Beza in referring to the future aspect of God.”

These are later identified as Beatus of Liebana (c. 8th
century) and Haimo Halberstadensis (9th century).

Third: It provides references to two Church
Fathers who made use of the Greek term ho
esomenos in reference to God: Clement of Alexandria (third century), The
Stromata, V.6; and Gregory of Nyssa (fourth century), On the Baptism of Christ (no reference notion given).

I agree that this information is by no means a “red herring.”

Fourth:It rightly stresses the fact that the text of Revelation was perhaps the
most corrupted of the NT books through the transmission process, and this has
ramifications that would perhaps argue in favor of emendation [Though I’d still
rather leave it as an open question as to whether Beza’s emendation was a
“pure” conjecture].

Opening statement
here: “Conjectural emendations are justified if we know that the text we are
dealing with has a history of extensive and early corruption. The book of
Revelation is such a text… We trust that God was able to preserve the true
reading of Revelation 16:5 until the advent of the printing press during the
Reformation.”

Fifth: A good point was made related to a
scribal error in p47 at Revelation 15:4 omitting the word “holy”: “If there is
evidence of a scribal error involving "οσιος" at Revelation 15:4, it
seems reasonable to suspect a scribal error involving the same word just one
chapter later at Revelation 16:5.”

Sixth: Excellent point made about the
parallel omission of kai ho erchomenos
in the modern critical or Majority texts at Revelation 11:17, but, in this
case, there is supporting Greek evidence for the TR reading.

Seventh: The article rightly points out the paucity of
extant early mss. evidence for Revelation. It states that there are only 4 ms.
of Rev 16:4 from before the tenth century and that p47 is the only papyrus ms.
to include Rev 16:5.

I
made a similar point in WM 114 in observation # 8 citing, Tobias Niklas, “The Early Text of Revelation” in Charles E.
Hill & Michael J. Kruger, Eds., The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012): 225-238.

I think the article errs, however, in suggesting
a degenerating chain from

p47 kai
hosios

to Sinaiticus ho
hosios

to Alexandrinus hosios

This is speculative and assumes without proof a
connection between these three mss. These changes are more likely to have
evolved independently.

Eighth: The article
provides four theories for how Revelation 16:5 might have become corrupted.

Theory 1: John wrote ho esomenos in nomen sacrum
from.

Theory 2: Bad conditions gave rise to corruption.

Theory 3: A scribe harmonized 16:5 with 11:17.

Theory 4: A Hebraist imposed Hebraic style onto
the text.

Of these I find Theories 2 and 3 to be credible,
and Theories 1 and 4 to be suspect.

Theory 1 is highly speculative. Examples:

“Perhaps the Apostle John himself wrote the words that refer
to God in "κυριε ει ο ων και ο ην και ο εσομενος" (O Lord, which art,
and wast, and shalt be) in an abbreviated nomina sacra form.”

“In nomen sacrum form, ‘ο εσομενος’ might be abbreviated as
OЄC.”

The problem: This seems highly speculative to me. Just note
how many times the words “may” “perhaps” or “might” is used by the article’s
author. This is not one of the usual nomina
sacra and there are no extant examples of it (see James
Snapp’s online article). The argument for this in Sinaiticus without
overlining seems strained to me.

Theory 4 based on the suggestion that Jewish readers would
have taken the future participle as superfluous to indicating the name of God
also seems strained and speculative.

Three Final Thoughts/Reflections:

First: Revelation 16:5,
the Textus Receptus, and the KJV

Interpretation of Revelation 16:5 raises the question of what
the standard text of the TR should be.

I think there is room in the TR camp both for those who
follow the Erasmus/Tyndale reading and those who follow the Beza/KJV reading
here.

I think the best reasons to accept the Beza/KJV reading at
Revelation 16:5 are the following:

-The text of Revelation was corrupted in its early transmission
and it is admitted by all to be difficult to reconstruct.

-p47 at least provides evidence for the conjunction kai in the earliest extant mss.

-The reading ho
esomenos, however, argues for originality, in part, based on its
uniqueness. If invented for the purposes of harmonization why would it not have
read ho erchomenos, as at Rev 1:4,
8; 4:8; and 11:17?

-We do not completely understand all the evidence
and reasoning of Beza and the KJV translators in choosing this reading, but we
might reasonably assume they had compelling reasons to adopt it, especially since
it went against the tide of respected earlier editions of the TR and,
especially, English translations of it.

-One can see the inclusion of this reading in the
KJV as of providential importance without arguing for the KJV as a product of
special revelation (a view which would be contrary to WCF 1:8).

Second: On
the most difficult to defend TR readings and the propriety of conjectures:

I think that in general we would prefer to have
TR readings supported by at least some extant Greek NT mss, even if they represent
a minority of mss., which may also be late mss. In addition, we would prefer to
have early versional and Patristic evidence. Thankfully, we usually have this.

We should recognize, however, that the NT books
which were acknowledged the latest in the canonical recognition process will provide
the least sufficient and reliable extant evidence. Our most difficult texts to
defend will not most generally be with the Gospels or Pauline epistles but with
Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Revelation.

This admission goes against a standard
conservative evangelical apologetic which has typically stressed the great
number of existing NT mss. whatever their date, content, and condition.

Finally, this raises the question of the
propriety of conjectures. As the author of the article noted, this was not a
problem of Bruce Metzger (see the quote in the article from The Text of the NT, 182). It is not a problem
for the modern editors of the NA28 using the CBGM (see the rendering of 2 Peter
3:10). So, it is affirmed in both modern and post-modern text criticism.

This brought to my mind the modern
historical-critical study of the Synoptic Gospels and the conjecture of a hypothetical
reconstructed sayings source Q. Such a view is embraced by evangelical scholars
like Craig A Evans, who argued for the “two source” in the recent book The Synoptic Gospel: Four Views (Baker
Academic, 2016). I find it ironic that Evans’s and others’s embrace of Q (an
entire hypothetical book with no external support) does not raise an eyebrow,
while Beza’s supposed conjecture of perhaps few words in Revelation 16:5 is
pilloried as outrageous and absurd?

This is another reason I was puzzled by JW’s stated
rejection of any conjectural emendations. Does this mean he rejects Metzger? The
CBGM? The NA28, 29, 30…?

Third: On Method:

First,
I think the historical study of the text of the Bible (textual criticism) is
vital and a discipline from which we have nothing to fear. Second, I think
defenders of the TR can and should make able use of historical evidence yielded
by this field of study. Given this, however, I also think we should be careful
not to fall into the trap of thinking we might simply use the modern
reconstructionist method to defend the TR. This is perhaps the biggest problem
I perceive with the article reviewed. It does not explicitly rely on a confessional method. If you try to fight
the modern “methodists” only with their method, in their eyes you will always
come up short.

I
thought this comment from Maurice Robinson on the Evangelical Text Criticism
blog related to the discussion of my review of the THGNT (here)
was perceptive:

In
terms of attempting to establish the original text (or the Ausgangstext if one is so inclined), a "TR-priority"
position indeed is illogical, as Mr Spock would say.

However, within the "Confessional Bibliology" or
"Ecclesiastical Text" framework, holding such a position actually
appears quite reasonable to its practitioners, much in the same way that the
Greek Orthodox church remains quite content to use a form of the 1904/1912
Antoniades text for all their practical purposes, even though from a more
scientific text-critical standpoint (including my own) their position is equally
defective.

2 comments:

James White does not have any right to condemn those who uphold Rev. 16.5, because he does the same with the Conjectural emendations made in the Critical Text.

I liked Nick Sayers' article, also the article present in the King James Today website, but I still agree with Edward Hills that Beza made a conjectural emendation in the text. We cannot forget Romans 7.6 and his Latin translation of Hebrews 6.6, where he adds the "if", which was followed by the King James Bible translators. I think The KJB translators had a huge respect for him as a biblical scholar and because of that, they followed him in these passages.

I don't any problems with TR defenders, like Nick, that defend Rev 16.5 as found in the KJB as genuine, but I think that is important doing it in a Confessional-traditional grounds. I Think that the Sociedad Bíblica Trinitaria (Spanish TBS branch) it is correct in its statement:

"Should we 'canonize' an edition of the Greek Received Text, especially from a particular author? We do not think so, because God does not share his glory with men. God did not raise a single man and only one edition of the Textus Receptus, for history shows us that there were several scholars in this work."